“Okay,” Ellen says, “but you’re not giving up, right?”
“No. Certainly not. The way I see it, you know… it’s a long game.”
Yeah, Ellen thinks, as she’s putting the phone down a few moments later, you can say that again.
“Can I make another call?”
His first one, last night, at Central Booking, was to Deb. Not to apologize exactly, or even to explain, it was just to connect. And he has to give Deb her due, she let him. After the initial shock, she didn’t launch into an attack or go off on a rant or anything. In fact, she spent most of the time trying to persuade him to let Lloyd bring in a partner from the law firm to represent him.
Seymour Collins. Here now in the cell.
“Yeah,” he says, “we can arrange that. Who to?”
Collins is businesslike, very direct, no bullshit. He’s mid-fifties, well fed, well dressed, well groomed, but he clearly knows what he’s doing, knows his way around the system, and talks everyone’s language. At the arraignment this morning, even though he must have known it wouldn’t be granted, he made very convincing arguments for bail. When the judge then ordered that Frank be transferred to Rikers Island for his pretrial detention period, Collins successfully argued that given the high-profile nature of the crime his client should at least be granted protective custody.
Which means that Frank is being kept in the West Facility and away from the prison’s general population.
So again, thank fuck for Lloyd.
But as for who Frank wants to call? Well, Collins has just spent the last hour telling him about what’s in the papers today and what’s being said about him on TV and online. Frank Bishop, domestic terrorist, sick ideologue… epic fuckup as a father, epic fail as a man. Can’t even hold down a shitty job in retail. If this guy doesn’t plead insanity, one blogger wrote, then he’s obviously insane. Now, while one part of Frank agrees with all of this, and wholeheartedly, another part doesn’t-the same part that insisted on entering a plea of not guilty at the arraignment. That’s the position he’s taking. He’s prepared to admit that he shot and killed Craig Howley, but not that he’s guilty. This is why he’s being kept on remand, and why there’s going to be a trial, and why-given the nature of the coverage-he’s going to need an ally, someone to tell his side of the story.
“Ellen Dorsey,” he says.
Collins does a double take. “The journalist?”
“Yes.”
Frank has no real reason to trust Ellen Dorsey. But he has no reason to distrust her either. All he has to go on is his instincts.
“You sure that’s a good idea, Frank? I think maybe you ought to let-”
“No. Believe me, it’s a good idea.”
Actually, what Frank isn’t sure of right now is how long Seymour Collins might want to stick around. Because who knows, for a firm like Pierson Hackler this whole thing could very easily turn into a PR nightmare. Deb’s initial impulse to help could become a liability. They could lose clients.
But something tells Frank that with Ellen Dorsey it’ll be different, that she’s just too fucking stubborn to turn her back on this, and that consequently any chance of a fair hearing in the media lies with her. And he means a fair hearing not just for himself-maybe not even for himself at all, in fact-but for Lizzie. Because really, that’s what he wants to see, something written about her that’s honest and that tries to make sense of what happened without resorting to lies and hysteria.
“How well do you know this person? Can you trust her?”
This person.
He and Ellen drove down from Atherton together. A week later they sat in a diner for about an hour. They’ve spoken briefly a couple of times since. It’s not much-but not much is all he’s got left.
“Yes, I can.”
Collins paces back and forth. The cell isn’t very big. “Okay, so what do you have in mind?”
Frank explains. He keeps it simple. The idea is to enlist the support of someone with a bit of integrity who can set the record straight.
Can’t hurt, can it?
“Very well,” Collins says. “Be careful what you say, though. The call will be recorded.”
A while later, as Frank is being escorted to where the phones are in the recreation area, he wonders what he really meant when he used the phrase set the record straight.
Because Lizzie was involved in two murders.
And he carried out a third.
What could be straighter than that? All the rest is noise, and will soon be forgotten.
Just like he’ll soon be forgotten.
And this is a thought that occurs to him now with clockwork regularity. It’s like a new heartbeat, dull, thudding, relentless. Prison is all he will know for the rest of his life-damp walls like these, and awful smells, and shitty food, and restricted access to everything, and constant, gnawing fear. He’ll never again make eye contact with that Asian woman who works at the Walgreens, never again experience that frisson of excitement as a possible future opens up before him.
Never be free of self-pity, either.
The guard escorting him indicates which phone Frank should use. He goes to it, picks it up, and huddles in.
This is potentially something, though, isn’t it? A chance to talk, to remember, to put it all down for posterity.
A link with the past, a link with the future.
He has Ellen’s number written on a piece of paper. He punches it out, and waits.
Thursday is Vaughan’s first day in a month without this new medication. He took the last pill yesterday, and spent a good part of the morning walking in Central Park and most of the afternoon sorting through some old archives. But his irritation at not being able to contact Arnie Tisch-who has apparently been transferred, or has had himself transferred, to Eiben’s main office in Beijing-is mitigated slightly by a determination not to let himself be ruled by this.
It’s only a stupid pill, after all.
He’s James Vaughan.
But he’s not giving up on it, either. If he has to, he’ll go straight to Paul Blanford, Eiben’s CEO, and find some way to scare the living daylights out of him. Because what’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re conducting illegal clinical trials in some third-world hellhole and are afraid of getting caught. He’s volunteering to take it. You’d think they’d be happy to get the feedback.
By ten o’clock, however, and despite his determination to brave it out, Vaughan has to admit that he’s feeling pretty lousy. Energy levels are noticeably down on recent days, and all of a sudden he’s aware, as he hasn’t been for ages, of various bodily aches and pains.
And he’s not doing anything, apart from shuffling aimlessly around the apartment. He doesn’t want to panic, though, so he makes a real effort to engage. He goes into his study and sits at his desk. He places a call to Paul Blanford. After a few moments, he’s informed that Mr. Blanford is unavailable. Wheezing a little now, suppressing a cough, he just about stops himself from barking Do you know who I am? into the phone. What he does say is that it’s imperative Mr. Blanford gets back to him.
Then, feeling a bit sick, he goes in search of Meredith.
He finds her, as he does most days now, sitting at the counter in the kitchen, drinking either coffee or a soda and staring up at live coverage of the Connie Carillo murder trial on the wall-mounted TV. Sometimes Mrs. R is around, sometimes not. Today she’s not, and Mer is alone, in jeans and a T-shirt, no makeup, hunched forward over the counter, can of soda next to the remote.
It all seems to have become a little obsessive of late.